Tag Archives: Ron Paul

In the most recent episode of Ron Paul’s Myth-Busters series, Dr. Paul tackles government redistribution and the politicians that justify it, whether they subscribe to the progressive or conservative ideology. He also talks about racism and 9/11. Continue reading →

Dr. Ron Paul has been saying this for years, while most of the country sat in their stupor, claiming he was a kook, making fun of him, making fun of his supporters. Now as we sit back and watch this go around for the run to the President of the US, what do we see? A whole lot of Bernie Sanders supporters, who are basically claiming that the old Bernster deserves to be POTUS because of a few things he has in common with Ron Paul. What’s even worse? Bernie is calling for a very extreme form of socialism, and anyone with any sense at all knows that socialism needs to be implemented before full communism can take it’s form. Continue reading →

Well the voting season is upon us. Of course right now it is only the primaries, but after hearing radio commentary and being a witness to the countless illogical and naive social media posts, along with countless articles by the lamestream media, I have decided I would do my own commentary. I do not have all day and night to be on Facebook or Twitter, and frankly I cannot understand how people have THAT much time on their hands. With that being said, I don’t even know where to start since there’s so much to all of this but I’m going to share my account with you in the shortest way possible. Continue reading →

Rand Paul addresses the funding of ISIS while Authentic Enlightenment’s Chris Perkins asks him about the funding of Israel. Shortly after Rand’s speech, Chris meets him and tries to get him to answer another question. Watch to see and hear the results!

War is a Racket by Smedley Butler is a famous speech denouncing the military industrial complex. This anti-war speech by two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient exposes war profits that benefit few at the expense of many. Throughout his distinguished career in the Marines, Smedley Darlington Butler demonstrated that true patriotism does not mean blind allegiance to government policies with which one does not agree. To Hell with war. Continue reading →

With all eyes turned to 29-year-old Edward Snowden, the former CIA analyst who leaked documents about the National Security Agency’s domestic spying is already on his way to becoming the most discussed man in America. Less than 24 hours after the Guardian went public with Snowden’s identity on Sunday, the leaker’s personal life and politics have already taken center stage.

Now at the center of some discussions is Snowden’s endorsement of Ron Paul during last year’s presidential race, a revelation that is providing a rare glimpse into the ideologies of a man who will likely face decades in prison for going public.

According to donation info published by the Center for Responsive Politics’ website OpenSecrets.org, Snowden made two contributions totaling $500 to the presidential campaign of then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) during the last calendar year. Snowden made a $250 contribution to Rep. Paul on March 18, 2012, and another $250 donation on May 6.

Rep. Paul was vying for the Republican Party’s nomination as president during last year’s election, ultimately losing that slot to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Paul ended his active campaigning phrase shortly after Snowden’s second contribution was made and retired from Congress in early 2013 after serving decades on Capitol Hill.

Although other links between Snowden and Paul haven’t been published yet, the leaker did say in an interview this week that he supported a third party presidential candidate during the 2008 race that ultimately ended in a win for Barack Obama, a Democrat.

“A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama’s promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor,” Snowden told the Guardian.

Before Barack Obama won his bid for the White House in 2008, he campaigned on a promise of having the most transparent presidential administration in the history of the United States. Today his office continues to stand by that vow despite spearheading an unprecedented war against leakers. The Obama administration has so far charged seven people under the Espionage Act, and more leakers have been prosecuted under that legislation than by every previous president combined.

Snowden is reported to currently be in Hong Kong after fleeing his apartment in Hawaii at the beginning of last month. He previously worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and, most recently, defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. He only worked there for three months before the Guardian published top secret documents last week about the NSA’s phone and Internet surveillance programs, operated for years under a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and a well-hidden program called PRISM.

“The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records [and] credit cards,” Snowden told the Guardian.

“I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”

Before the Guardian went public with Snowden’s allegations about the spy program — then later his identity — the leaker went to the Washington Post and asked them to publish his evidence of PRISM.

“Snowden asked for a guarantee that The Washington Post would publish — within 72 hours — the full text of a PowerPoint presentation describing PRISM, a top-secret surveillance program that gathered intelligence from Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other Silicon Valley giants,” Post reporter Barton Gellman admitted this week.

“I told him we would not make any guarantee about what we published or when,” Gellman recalled for the Post. According to Gellman, “The Post sought the views of government officials about the potential harm to national security prior to publication and decided to reproduce only four of the 41 slides.”

Snowden’s attempt to expose the secretive program through the Washington Post draws an eerie parallel to the case of Bradley Manning, the 25-year-old Army private who gave hundreds of thousands of sensitive government files to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks — but not before his phone calls to the Post and New York Times were ignored.

“I maintain that government becomes more secret and the people’s privacy is being destroyed. We should protect the people’s privacy and we should make the government much more open,” Paul said last April during a campaign stop in San Antonio, Texas.

“I would certainly lean in the direction of protecting people that are trying to tell the truth,” said Paul. “The more openness the better. That’s what a free society is all about. It wouldn’t be so critical if the government was a lot smaller, but because it is so big it is big issue because there is so much that could be hidden.”

I want to begin by saying thank you for signing up for this email list and for your incredible support of my work with Reality Check and Full Disclosure over the past 2 years.

As promised, you are now the first to hear in detail about my- actually our- next step. Beginning next week on Monday, June 10, we will officially launch the “Liberty Is Rising Truth in Media Project” on Kickstarter. As I have told you, this is the most involved and meaningful project I have ever been involved in and it is not something I can do on my own.

The “Liberty is Rising Truth in Media Project” is a 3 step process:

Inform, Engage, Activate:

Step 1: INFORM

The first step of this project and the primary use of Kickstarter is to create high-end, high-quality Reality Check style segments that can be presented to the public via streaming content sites such as Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, or devices such as Roku andBenSwann.com. Our goal is to produce 100 high quality five to six minute shows and by launching this project independently, the restrictions on subject matter by corporate bosses will not be an issue.

Why do the videos need to be so high quality? Simple, we need to spread this message as far out as we can. Like it or not, we live in a very media-savvy culture and if the public at large is to take this kind of journalism seriously, they need to be able to hear and see it in a way that is deemed credible. You can watch network news programming all day and never hear anything of substance but it sure looks pretty. If we are to educate and inform the public on issues of war, the drug war, monetary policy, drone strikes, the NDAA, CAFR, crony capitalism, etc… it MUST be done in the style and format generations of Americans have been trained to accept as “professional”.

The films will be distributed via multiple platforms. First, we continue to share new content virally via Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, BenSwann.com, and continue to allow alternative media blog sites to use our films without charge and embed them, as long as they are shown in their entirety. This is important because we want as many people exposed to our journalism as possible.

We will be rolling out a highly interactive, informative website that will include all Full Disclosure episodes, a forum, Ben Swann podcasts, and a mobile app.

Also, as I mentioned, we are going to attempt to spread these films into new arenas such as streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify. Again, the goal is to engage the largest audience possible.

Step 2: ENGAGE
Each of us must impact our own circle of influence.

We are currently building out a multi-faceted platform of engagement where you and I will work together to take single issues and impact public opinion. This platform will contain resources like stats, infographics, archived articles, and other educational materials that will be available to download or share.

Students:
This platform will work directly with college student groups like Young Americans for Liberty, Young Republicans, Young Democrats and politically independent groups, giving students hard facts and data to share with peers and teaching them how to hold information sessions on campus.

Journalists:
We will work with journalists across the country challenging them to engage in critical thinking and questioning of local, state and national leaders on issues of importance. We’ll equip them on how to challenge the status quo in their newsrooms and move beyond reading press releases.

Faith Based Communities:
We will engage faith-based communities (Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, etc) and challenge the acceptance of government control over their religious activities.

Local Lawmakers:
We will engage local and state lawmakers and challenge the over-reach, over taxation, and policing for profit that is taking place in every city and town in America.

Tea Party:
We will engage those in the Tea Party movement who entered the movement for the right reasons, to protest over taxation and government control.

Occupy:
We will engage those in the Occupy movement who rightly protested the consolidation of wealth among a small group of people and who have created a crony capitalist system (that isn’t capitalism at all).

Building Consensus:
The goal is to help Americans escape the Left/Right paradigm of arguing with each other while politicians and big money run the nation and our lives. We desire to create unity among all these groups in the areas where we can agree. That happens when we are defined not by who we stand against, but what we stand for. It is not about Left vs. Right or Republican vs. Democrat… but Liberty vs. Tyranny.

You and I will go through this process together. Beyond just sharing the content, you will be instrumental to the gathering of information and the actual creation of that content. With your engagement we will be able to create public awareness and social willingness to drive change.

Step 3: ACTIVATE

The best part of this step is that the work you and I will have already done is key. Having forced important issues into the forefront of public awareness we will have already changed minds and that will allow action to be taken.

Through strategic partnerships with established political and student groups as well as individual experts in the fields or medicine, education, economics, security, drug policy etc. we will begin to crowd-source “change strategies”.

The end result of these strategies will include legal and legislative process for changing U.S. policy overseas and here at home. We will challenge lawmakers who continue to engage in hypocritical behavior and are unwilling to stand up for rule of law. As a long-term goal, we will eventually work with lawmakers to draft legislation to correct the nation’s trajectory. Dr. Ron Paul borrowed the words of Victor Hugo when he declared in 2008, “An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government.”

Ron Paul Said It Best:

I recently had the chance to interview Dr. Paul and we talked in depth about the changing media landscape. How has media changed for a man who has spent his entire life attempting to change the system?

“When I first started in politics in the 70’s, we basically had three major networks and they were very, very close together on philosophy…..But now the options are great…..Now the information is going out differently. It’s going out on handheld devices and computers and telephones and they can turn you on and off when they want. They have so many more choices.”

Dr. Paul then added:I’m optimistic that things are going to do well and I’m optimistic because you’re (Ben Swann) involved in this fight with us.”

Again, I want to thank you for your support so far. As you can see this next step is a very ambitious project. There is risk here but I believe that every great movement in history has been accompanied by great challenge and risk.

2. Please forward this email on to friends and family who you believe might want to be a part of this project.

3. Please share the new cover photo featured on my Facebook pages that can be foundhere.

There has never been a moment like this before in world history where a society has had this kind of collision of technology and information. This is our moment. I hope that next Monday, you will commit to helping me to shake the media landscape in America! I leave you with these words from a great patriot Samuel Adams who once proclaimed,

“It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” – Samuel Adams

Former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas called the recent IRS fiasco troubling — but writes that the only way Congress can protect the freedoms of Americans from a long pattern of suspected IRS abuse is to “shutter the doors” of the agency “once and for all.”

The longtime GOP congressman writes that IRS agents in the 1930s were essentially “hit squads” against opponents of the New Deal, and that allegations of IRS abuse spanned the administrations of Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton and George W. Bush.

“The bipartisan tradition of using the IRS as a tool to harass political opponents suggests that the problem is deeper than just a few ‘rogue’ IRS agents — or even corruption within one, two, three or many administrations,” Dr. Paul writes in his weekly column, “Texas Straight Talk. “Instead, the problem [lies] in the extraordinary power the tax system grants the IRS.”

The libertarian and tea party hero goes on to argue that the power of the IRS can only be countered with a complete overhaul to the country’s tax system.

“The federal government will get along just fine without its immoral claim on the fruits of our labor, particularly if the elimination of federal income taxes are accompanied by serious reduction in all areas of spending, starting with the military spending beloved by so many who claim to be opponents of high taxes and big government,” he writes. “While it is important for Congress to investigate the most recent scandal and ensure all involved are held accountable, we cannot pretend that the problem is a few bad actors. The very purpose of the IRS is to transfer wealth from one group to another while violating our liberties in the process, thus the only way Congress can protect our freedoms is to repeal the income tax and shutter the doors of the IRS once and for all.”

(Raw Story) -Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and freshman state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione have a plan to create a “Fort Knox of Texas” so that the state can start hoarding gold.

Giovanni has filed a bill to establish a Texas Bullion Depository to store the $1 billion worth of gold bars that are owned by University of Texas Investment Management Co. (UTIMCO), which are currently being housed by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Speaking to conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Tuesday, Perry said that lawmakers were in the process of “bringing gold that belongs to the state of Texas back into the state.” Beck has been a longtime paid spokesperson for the precious metal seller Goldline, which agreed to refund up to $4.5 million to former customers last year after being sued for marking up gold more than 50 percent.

“If we own it, I will suggest to you that that’s not someone else’s determination whether we can take possession of it back or not,” Perry told Beck.

“If you think gold is a hedge, or a protection, you always want it as close to the individual and the entity as possible,” Paul said. “Texas is better served if it knows exactly where the gold is rather than depending on the security of the Federal Reserve.”

For his part, Capriglione said that he had gotten the idea while attending a tea party rally with Perry in Tarrant County earlier this year.

“Something on the scorecards of a lot of these businesses in deciding whether they want to come to Texas is stability and gold as being one of those items,” Capriglione insisted. “I think it’s been in his consciousness for a while in trying to get some sort of depository in the state of Texas.”

“We don’t want just the certificates. We want our gold. And if you’re the state of Texas, you should be able to get your gold.”

Tangent Capital Partners senior managing director Jim Rickards speculated to Yahoo Finance on Thursday that creating a “Fort Knox of Texas” could be a step in Texas creating its own currency and eventually moving to secede.

“This bill contains a provision that says to the federal government that you, the federal government, purport to confiscate this Texas gold, we, the state of Texas, consider that to be null and void,” Rickards pointed out. “And under the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution, they have that power.”

Earlier this year, more than 100,000 people signed a petition on the White House website calling on President Barack Obama’s administration to allow the state to secede.

White House Office of Public Engagement Director Jon Carson responded by noting that the Supreme Court in 1869 that states do not have a right to secede.

Carson noted that the Founding Fathers established a Constitution and “enshrined in that document the right to change our national government through the power of the ballot — a right that generations of Americans have fought to secure for all. But they did not provide a right to walk away from it.”

(offgridsurvival.com) In case you missed what happened yesterday, because it was not covered by the Mainstream Media, Senator Rand Paul led a 12 hour filibuster of CIA Nominee John Brennan, after the White House refused to say they don’t have the authority to kill American Citizens on American Soil.

In what should have had 100% support by every member of the Senate, only managed to garner the support of a handful of senators. In fact this morning, the Senate, led by Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, took to the Senate floor to denounce Rand Paul’s demands. Senator McCain said he was doing a “disservice” to the country.

A disservice to the country?

Since when is standing up for our right to live a disservice to the country? Every last one of these people needs to be voted the hell out of office. The fact that we couldn’t even get a majority of the U.S. Senate to agree that the President does not have the authority to Kill American Citizens on American Soil (without a trial), is an absolute travesty of justice. What a sad day it is for America when it’s even up for debate.

What the hell happened to America? The sad reality of what happened yesterday, on the Floor of the Senate, should send chills through the spines of every red blooded American. Can you believe we have come to a place where it’s now being debated whether or not the federal government can ignore the Constitution and kill Americans without a trail?

Senate Refuses to Pass Non-Binding Bill Saying President doesn’t have the right to Kill Americans

To bring the Filibuster to a close, Senator Rand Paul offered a non-binding resolution opposing the President’s ability to kill Americans in drone strikes on US soil. Something that should have received 100% support in the Senate, couldn’t even get enough votes to pass. We are living in a country where only a handful of our elected representatives seem to have a problem with our government conducting the targeted killing of American Citizens.

Democrat Senator Dick Durbin, speaking for the majority, was designated to say he objects to Paul’s non-binding resolution. The fact that a majority of the U.S. Senate could not even stand together in opposition to something as simple as opposing (in a non-binding resolution) the President’s ability to assassinate citizens in drone attacks on US soil is simply inexcusable.

This is not a Partisan Issue: Both Sides are to Blame

For those that want to claim this as a partisan issue, I want to remind people that both political parties, Democrats and Republicans, overwhelmingly supported President Obama’s ability to kill American Citizens without a trial. In fact, at the same time Rand Paul made his stand to say that, “No President has the right to say that he is judge, jury, and executioner”, a huge number of Republican Senators decided to ignore what was going on in the Senate, and instead attended a swanky dinner with President Obama.

The Following Republicans decided it was more important to be seen eating dinner with the President than it was to Stand with Rand Paul and Support the Constitution and your right to live.

When asked this morning whether the president has the power to kill Americans here at home, Senator Lindsey Graham said “I find the question offensive, I do not believe that question deserves an answer.” Senator John McCain then went to the Senate floor and defended President Obama’s ability to kill American Citizens on American Soil, by arguing that America is part of the worldwide battlefield. He publicly stated that the President has the right to kill Americans (without a trial) who are deemed to be “enemies” of the country.

(Digital Journal) -The “Champion of Liberty” himself has admitted that the government is fully aware of the potential for civil unrest in the United States and is even preparing for it.

In an interview on The Alex Jones Show on Monday, February 25, 2013, former Congressman and 2008 and 2012 Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul commented on the “domestic arms race” and the government’s obvious preparation for civil unrest by suggesting that “[the government] does not know that in two months from now there’s riots in the streets, but they know that there could be.” Paul went on to explain that he does not believe the government necessarily believes that civil unrest in America is a certainty but that the elites at all levels of power are making preparations in order to retain their power. He also said “I would expect that the people in charge know that there’s trouble ahead and they’re laying their plans to react in any way they think necessary.”

When asked about the potential for civil war following a gun confiscation attempt, the 12-term Congressman explained that while the government is not necessarily planning to ban guns for the sole purpose of sparking a civil war, it would definitely be a possibility. He believes that the gun control advocates believe in government, as opposed the people, owning guns as a philosophy. “Whether that is exactly what they want it’s hard to say,” said Congressman Paul “but I know one thing; they don’t want the people to have the guns.” Paul finally said, with Alex Jones’ agreement, that he doesn’t believe the American people will willingly give up their guns.

(Ron Paul) -While I oppose most gun control proposals, there is one group of Americans I do believe should be disarmed: federal agents. The use of force by federal agents to enforce unjust and unconstitutional laws is one of the major, albeit overlooked, threats to liberty. Too often Americans are victimized by government force simply for engaging in commercial transactions disproved of by Congress and the federal bureaucracy.

For example, the offices of Rawesome Foods in Venice, California, have been repeatedly raided by armed federal and state agents, and Rawesome’s founder, 65-year old James Stewart, has been imprisoned. What heinous crime justified this action? Rawesome sold unpasteurized (raw) milk and cheese to willing customers – in a state where raw milk is legal! You cannot even drink milk from a cow without a federal permit!

This is hardly the only case of federal agents using force against those who would dare meet consumer demand for raw milk. In 2011 armed agents of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raided the business of Pennsylvanian Amish farmer Dan Allgyer. Federal agents wasted a whole year and who knows how many millions of our tax dollars posing as customers in order to stop Allgyer from selling his raw milk to willing customers.

The use of force against individuals making choices not approved of by the political elite does not just stop with raw milk. The Natural News website has documented numerous accounts of federal persecution, including armed raids, of health food stores and alternative medical practitioners.

(DailyMail) -The teenage grandson of former presidential candidate Ron Paul was arrested last night at Charlotte Douglas International Airport and charged with disorderly conduct and being intoxicated and disruptive.

Deputies at the airport said that William Hilton Paul, 19, identified himself a member of the political family and as the son of U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, but said that they did not know where he got the alcohol or if anyone at the airport had served him.

The teenager who is currently a student of the University of Kentucky was taken in by deputies of the Mecklenburh County Sheriff’s Office to be booked and is scheduled to appear in court on January 8th.

William Hilton Paul, 19, was charged with Disorderly Conduct and being Intoxicated and Disruptive

Moira Bagley, communications director for Senator Paul released the following statement on Sunday afternoon:

‘Senator Paul is a national public figure and subject to scrutiny in the public arena, however, as many parents with teenagers would understand, his family should be afforded the privacy and respect they deserve in a situation such as this.’

Charlotte Douglas International Airport – where William Hilton Paul was arrested on Saturday morning

Rand Paul (left) is the father of the teenage boy arrested in North Carolina and Ron Paul (right) is his grandfather

Police said William Hilton Paul, 19, was traveling early Saturday from Lexington, Ky., to Charlotte.

When the US Airways flight landed around 10:49 a.m., Paul was charged with consuming beer/wine underage, disorderly conduct and being intoxicated and disruptive.

The arrest comes at an embarrassing time for Senator Paul after he dropped a hint over the weekend that he might contemplate a run for the presidency in 2016.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) attends the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on August 28, 2012 in Tampa, Florida – he has refused to rule out a tilt at the presidency in 2016

Appearing as a guest on the nationally syndicated radio program ‘The Andrea Tantaros Show with Jason Mattera’, the senator suggested his libertarian approach is what the Republican party needs to get re-elected to the White House.

Asked if he personally was thinking about a run for president, Paul said: ‘The Republican Pary, in order to grow and win national elections again, we are going to have to have somebody a little bit different than we’ve had in the past.

‘Someone who can appeal to people in New England and on the West Coast. Someone who has a little more of a libertarian-Republican approach, I think, would have a better chance with independents and moderates.

‘And so, we’ll think about it.’

The radio host interrupted, ‘Are you going to run? Are you thinking about running?’

‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ replied Paul. ‘I haven’t said no, and I haven’t also said yes.’

(Ron Paul) -As I prepare to retire from Congress, I’d like to suggest a few New Year’s resolutions for my colleagues to consider. For the sake of liberty, peace, and prosperity I certainly hope more members of Congress consider the strict libertarian constitutional approach to government in 2013.

In just a few days, Congress will solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. They should reread Article 1 Section 8 and the Bill of Rights before taking such a serious oath. Most legislation violates key provisions of the Constitution in very basic ways, and if members can’t bring themselves to say no in the face of pressure from special interests, they have broken trust with their constituents and violated their oaths. Congress does not exist to serve special interests, it exists to protect the rule of law.

I also urge my colleagues to end unconstitutional wars overseas. Stop the drone strikes; stop the covert activities and meddling in the internal affairs of other nations. Strive to observe “good faith and justice towards all Nations” as George Washington admonished. We are only making more enemies, wasting lives, and bankrupting ourselves with the neoconservative, interventionist mindset that endorses pre-emptive war that now dominates both parties.

All foreign aid should end because it is blatantly unconstitutional. While it may be a relatively small part of our federal budget, for many countries it is a large part of theirs–and it creates perverse incentives for both our friends and enemies. There is no way members of Congress can know or understand the political, economic, legal, and social realities in the many nations to which they send taxpayer dollars.

Congress needs to stop accumulating more debt. US debt, monetized by the Federal Reserve, is the true threat to our national security. Revisiting the parameters of Article 1 Section 8 would be a good start.

Congress should resolve to respect personal liberty and free markets. Learn more about the free market and how it regulates commerce and produces greater prosperity better than any legislation or regulation. Understand that economic freedom IS freedom. Resolve not to get in the way of voluntary contracts between consenting adults. Stop bailing out failed yet politically connected companies and industries. Stop forcing people to engage in commerce when they don’t want to, and stop prohibiting them from buying and selling when they do want to. Stop trying to legislate your ideas of fairness. Protect property rights. Protect the individual. That is enough.

There are many more resolutions I would like to see my colleagues in Congress adopt, but respect for the Constitution and the oath of office should be at the core of everything members of Congress do in 2013.

The senseless and horrific killings last week in Newtown, Connecticut reminded us that a determined individual or group of individuals can cause great harm no matter what laws are in place. Connecticut already has restrictive gun laws relative to other states, including restrictions on fully automatic, so-called “assault” rifles and gun-free zones.

Predictably, the political left responded to the tragedy with emotional calls for increased gun control. This is understandable, but misguided. The impulse to have government “do something” to protect us in the wake national tragedies is reflexive and often well intentioned. Many Americans believe that if we simply pass the right laws, future horrors like the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting can be prevented. But this impulse ignores the self evident truth that criminals don’t obey laws.

The political right, unfortunately, has fallen into the same trap in its calls for quick legislative solutions to gun violence. If only we put armed police or armed teachers in schools, we’re told, would-be school shooters will be dissuaded or stopped.

While I certainly agree that more guns equals less crime and that private gun ownership prevents many shootings, I don’t agree that conservatives and libertarians should view government legislation, especially at the federal level, as the solution to violence. Real change can happen only when we commit ourselves to rebuilding civil society in America, meaning a society based on family, religion, civic and social institutions, and peaceful cooperation through markets. We cannot reverse decades of moral and intellectual decline by snapping our fingers and passing laws.

Let’s not forget that our own government policies often undermine civil society, cheapen life, and encourage immorality. The president and other government officials denounce school violence, yet still advocate for endless undeclared wars abroad and easy abortion at home. U.S. drone strikes kill thousands, but nobody in America holds vigils or devotes much news coverage to those victims, many of which are children, albeit, of a different color.

Obviously I don’t want to conflate complex issues of foreign policy and war with the Sandy Hook shooting, but it is important to make the broader point that our federal government has zero moral authority to legislate against violence.

Furthermore, do we really want to live in a world of police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, X-ray scanners, and warrantless physical searches? We see this culture in our airports: witness the shabby spectacle of once proud, happy Americans shuffling through long lines while uniformed TSA agents bark orders. This is the world of government provided “security,” a world far too many Americans now seem to accept or even endorse. School shootings, no matter how horrific, do not justify creating an Orwellian surveillance state in America.

Do we really believe government can provide total security? Do we want to involuntarily commit every disaffected, disturbed, or alienated person who fantasizes about violence? Or can we accept that liberty is more important than the illusion of state-provided security? Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives.

We shouldn’t settle for substituting one type of violence for another. Government role is to protect liberty, not to pursue unobtainable safety. Our freedoms as Americans preceded gun control laws, the TSA, or the Department of Homeland Security. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference, not by safety. It is easy to clamor for government security when terrible things happen; but liberty is given true meaning when we support it without exception, and we will be safer for it.

(RT) -The controversial NDAA bill, which allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens, was approved by the Senate despite White House threats to veto the legislation. Republican Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has decried the law as an “abomination.”

The libertarian Republican voiced his concerns to a conference committee following the decision to give the present version of National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) the go-ahead. Paul cited the committee’s decision to scrap an amendment that would have prohibited the indefinite detention of US citizens suspected of terrorist activities.“It’s [the amendment] been removed because they want the ability to hold American citizens without trial in our country. This is so fundamentally wrong and goes against everything we stand for as a country that it can’t go unnoticed,” Paul told the committee. He went on to condemn the bill as an “abomination” that deprives US citizens of the right to a fair trial.

“When you’re accused of a crime in our country you get a trial, you get a trial by a jury of your peers, no matter how heinous your crime is, no matter how awful you are, we give you a trial,” he said.

Senators in favor of the bill disregarded Paul’s claims, maintaining that the language in the legislation protected Americans’ constitutional right to a trial. They argue that US citizens who affiliate themselves with foreign powers consequently sacrifice their constitutional rights.

Under the contested act, the President reserves the right to jail any US citizen suspected of aiding terrorists or forces hostile to the US and its allies.

Earlier this month, the Senate approved the Feinstein Amendment that specifically prohibited “detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the United States, unless an Act of Congress expressly authorizes such detention.” The exemption of this amendment by Senators removes current safeguards that prevent the president from incarcerating an individual suspected of terrorism.

The Legislation will now go to the White House, where it may be vetoed by President Obama.

“The Administration strongly objects to section 1031’s restrictions on the use of funds to transfer detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries,” the White House said in a policy statement.

Obama signed the 2012 version of the document into law last September, but included a statement saying that his administration “will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.”

The legislation also stipulates a significant increase in the Pentagon budget, including $88.5 billion for America’s ongoing wars and other operations around the world. The total amount of military spending set out in the new bill is $1.7 billion over what the Obama Administration initially put forward in its 2013 budget.

The House Armed Services Committee has hailed the measures as “an incremental step to address the $46 billion decrease when considering where the president proposed national defense [spending] would be for fiscal year 2013 in last year’s budget.”

(WND) Honoring one of the most inspiring and principled political careers in contemporary American politics, culminating in an extraordinary “farewell address” upon his recent announced retirement from the House of Representatives, WND has named U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, as its “Man of the Decade.”

In addition to his primary focus of keeping government within the confines of the Constitution, Paul’s legacy will prominently feature his unwavering dedication to audit – and ultimately abolish – the Federal Reserve in a decades-long effort to restore America’s economy and monetary system to sound, constitutional principles.

He took no prisoners and abided by no political party dictates while trying to push America back to the ideas of its Founding Fathers regarding privacy, responsibility, limited government and freedom.

“It was overall the whole thing about free market economics, individual liberties and the foreign policy … it was my deep conviction that we were [going] in the wrong direction,” he told WND.

Paul’s rise into politics after these revelations was almost an accident.

“I started speaking out just as a candidate, without any expectation of going to Congress. And then I was surprised, the time must have been right, we got attention, and I did wind up in Congress,” he said.

Paul served in the House of Representatives in three different phases, first from 1976-1977, then from 1979-1985 where he ended his term in the House to run for the Senate. He then re-entered the House in 1997 until his recent retirement from politics at the age of 77.

Paul also uniquely was recognized for his first presidential bid in the 1988 presidential election on the Libertarian Party ticket, as well, of course, as his influential role as a GOP presidential candidate in both 2008 and 2012.

Perhaps, though, the most prestigious title Paul earned was “Dr. No,” reflecting his stalwart commitment to the principles of liberty which he advocated by refusing to vote for legislation that went against the Constitution. He described this position on his website by stating that he “will never vote for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution.”

WND’s “Man of the Decade” award is designated for the man who has, over many years, done the most to represent goodness, perseverance, manliness and character. The recipient should be someone prominent enough to have had an impact on wider American and global opinion. Their successes and failures for the year are to be weighed and considered.

There were no runners-up considered in the category.

In 1987, Paul resigned – for a time – from the Republican Party so he could run for the presidency under the Libertarian Party.

He wrote: “I want to totally disassociate myself from the policies that have given us unprecedented deficits, massive monetary inflation, indiscriminate military spending, an irrational and unconstitutional foreign policy, zooming foreign aid, the exaltation of international banking and the attack on our personal liberties and privacy.”

More recently, back in the Republican Party, Paul’s vehement offensive has been against the Federal Reserve System and what he calls the “warmongering” foreign policy of both the Democrat and Republican parties.

His rise in influence, which helped to create the tea party movement, burst forth initially in 2008 with his presidential campaign bid, and surged again mightily in 2012, when he got 190 delegates at the GOP National Convention.

Though not having won a single state in 2008, in 2012 Paul bounced back and stunned the Republican establishment by carrying delegates from Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada and Louisiana, placing him in third place.

Paul also upset the Republican establishment by scoring two stunning upsets at the Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll in 2010 and 2011.

Since his presidential bids, Paul has come to be characterized as the “intellectual godfather” of the tea party movement – a title he lightheartedly rejects, but which nonetheless has been perpetuated through his actions both inside and outside of Congress.

He is also the author of six books, “The Case for Gold” (1982), “A Foreign Policy of Freedom” (2007), “The Revolution: A Manifesto” (2008), “Pillars of Prosperity” (2008), “End The Fed” (2009), and “Liberty Defined” (2011).

Despite not being able to secure the GOP nomination for president in 2008 and 2012, Paul was highly revered for his ability to draw crowds far larger than his competitors, including Barack Obama, especially among the college youth.

Though now leaving Congress, Paul’s legacy will continue, many believe, through his son, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

“It was very nice and exciting. Both my wife and I were very pleased,” the senior Paul told WND. “We had five children. They all got involved in politics to some degree, but he obviously was the one that got much more involved. He had studied Austrian economics, so none of us was surprised that he was the one kid who got involved in running.”

“I have to admit that I thought it was a big thing he was taking on, running for the Senate for the first time, but his timing was right, the tea party movement was there and he was able to pull it off.”

So is Rand Paul the “heir” to the torch for liberty in Congress?

“I don’t think in those terms. Obviously our views are going to be very similar, but … it is not going to be a very successful revolution if one person is going to carry it on.”

Tea party and Federal Reserve

Regarding the tea party, Paul told WND, “In the early part of the tea party movement, it was much better than it became later on,” lamenting that much of the spontaneity that was there in the early days has been lost.

Yet he said the tea party was “very beneficial” to the development of grassroots activism in the liberty movement, and added that it was “inevitable” there would be attempts by the GOP establishment to “hijack” the tea party movement.

Nonetheless, for the tea party movement to advance, he said, it needs to “do what they are currently doing and not try and have one person or one group speak for the tea party movement, and I think it should be individual and local by the states and little towns … but they have to maintain an anti-establishment attitude.”

“I think that is where our problem is. The two parties are so much alike, we hear rhetoric that is different, but those of us who have looked at this for a while, we elect one party or the other, policies more or less stay the same.”

He noted specifically that, when it comes to foreign policy, the Federal Reserve System and monetary policy, both parties are virtually identical.

Regarding the Fed, he said the campaign against the quasi-governmental organization that controls America’s monetary system will continue.

“Absolutely, I think it [the resistance] has only begun. Because I see young teenagers coming into my office and telling me that they are reading about [economist Murray] Rothbard, and I say ‘how old are you’ and they say ’14,’ and I say that ‘you are far ahead of where I was at your age.’”

He continued, “All central banks are under attack right now because of … the bankruptcy of the whole world.”

The Federal Reserve System will end, Paul told WND, “when it destroys itself.”

He then likened the coming collapse of the Fed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, because both systems “lived beyond [their] means.”

Socialism is “not functional,” said Paul, and the monetary system “is the same way.”

“It would be great to get an audit,” he said, “because that would hurry up the collapse, because everybody would realize the benefits of the bailouts and where the money has been going.”

The tipping point will come in “a major, major crisis in the bond market, the dollar market and the derivatives market,” said Paul, who added, ominously, “it will be a gigantic” event.

The global markets will dump the dollar at some point, but that is unpredictable, he said, and “could go at any time.” It will be preceded, he added, by an event that will “precipitate a rush out of the dollar.”

Paul eerily concluded that this rush out of the dollar could occur “during this next four years … I would think that something big is going to happen.”

Civil liberties, the NDAA, drones and false-flag attacks

In specific reference to the growing threat to civil liberties – through drone monitors, airport body image scanners, email monitoring and the like, Paul confirmed he shares some of the growing fears of millions of Americans that the nation is becoming a police state.

“I do think so. Essentially getting rid of posse comitatus and saying that the military can arrest citizens and hold them in secret prisons indefinitely,” he said.

He also noted that Americans’ ability to express themselves is becoming much more difficult as other rights fade away. The nation’s citizens now face gross violations of the right to privacy, the right to a fair and speedy trial, the right to a trial by jury and loss of due process, he said.

“Executive orders,” he added, warning of the imposition of a president’s will irrespective of constitutionality, “are already there.”

“They can declare emergencies. The fact that the president issued an executive order and killed [Anwar] al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son, I mean those executive orders are there. And they can do almost anything they want.”

Americans also are being subject to unprecedented government surveillance, he noted.

There are “umpteen thousand [drones] deployed that are spying on Americans, and it is only beginning.”

As a solution to the growing threat, Paul said, “What I hope and pray for is the technology to come along where there is a good defensive weapon on this – where we as citizens get worried about drones over our house that we might have electronic waves to disable these things.”

Such would be a nonviolent defense against drones, he said.

“Of course, the ones that are causing the most damage to us as a country are the ones that are flying around the world. I think this is going to build up tremendous hatred toward us and when we get on the ropes all that pent-up frustration on us will come out and we will be under attack.”

On liberty – his favorite subject – Paul expressed his fear of rising world government as a key agenda of the American elites.

“That is another trend I think is a very dangerous trend … [where] … there is less control by the people than ever before.”

If a person truly believes in individual liberty, said Paul, one cannot believe in one-world government. He gave examples of how America goes to war under a U.N. banner or NATO resolution and noted that the IMF regulates American monetary policy and that these are all stepping stones towards world government.

Manipulating not just social issues or economic factors, but actual war events, he said, is part of what governments do.

“I think they have [used false-flag events] in the past and they are quite willing to use something that may have not been deliberate. I think Vietnam was a false flag that we later found out our vessels [in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident] were not attacked … and there is a lot of controversy over the Spanish-American War,” he said.

“I think almost always governments lie to their people,” he said

Secession

Regarding the current sentiment toward secession, since Obama’s re-election, Paul said: “I don’t think in the real sense of the word [secession], I talk about de facto secession and nullification, if the federal government becomes totally inept because they can’t pass out any more money, because the money has no value, that I think people might just ignore the government. I think it could be a good thing that way.”

About decisions in Washington state and Colorado to legalize marijuana, he said, “I think nullification is getting a healthy discussion right now” in seeing how states are continuing to defy the federal government.

“One thing that people can do in states … is personal secession,” he said.

Paul cited the developing mass movement of people from California to Texas, over economic and social conditions, and said citizens are moving from oppressive, economically poor states to liberty-loving rich ones. That, he said, is a way to promote the values of liberty.

And he said people soon will be wanting to leave the U.S., because of an oppressive economic atmosphere, but will face obstacles.

“[It] you want to leave even now, there are a lot of restrictions; they don’t want you to pick up and take your money with you. They’ll be cracking down on that,” he said.

The veteran congressman said he doesn’t expect to see another secession movement like what preceded the Civil War, but noted it should be possible.

“The Founders recognized it was an option,” he said. “I think that this principle is a great principle with us.”

2nd Amendment

When asked about the recent shootings in Oregon and Connecticut and how to formulate the best response, Paul said it’s not complicated.

“Last year I introduced a bill to eliminate this concept of gun-free zones. If there is a gun-free zone, this is where all the killing occurs. I would start there, by not limiting the ability of people who are law-abiding citizens to have a gun and defend themselves. I would make sure they are able to. I think the Second Amendment has to be honored and protected. On that same day about 95 people were killed by automobiles, but you don’t hear anybody getting up saying, ‘Oh I think we should eliminate the automobile.’”

“I think it is sad that they politicize this,” he added, “[as though] we have too much freedom to defend ourselves.”

He said while communities with strong firearm ownership don’t have such problems, he expected the politicization of the tragedy to continue, on the part of those who follow Rahm Emanuel’s famous statement, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

Regarding Obama’s current push for new congressional gun control, Paul said his hope is that the Second Amendment will prevail.

“There is an unbelievable amount of support for the Second Amendment and … it is not going to be very easy to take our guns away,” he said.

Parting words

Though the picture remains bleak at present for the United States, Paul did say, when asked if America has passed the point of no return, “I don’t think we’re past that point. I think we’re past the point economically [of] expecting Congress to solve their fiscal problems and monetary problems.”

“We’ve already gone off the fiscal cliff,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t come to our senses.”

The people will have to decide their future, he said.

“I do believe there will be breakdown of law and order, the economic system will be fragile, and the question the American people are going to ask [is], are we going to just tolerate more, bigger government and more totalitarianism.”

Citing his own popularity among the young, he said he holds a lot of hope that there will be a turnaround.

“I never set out to stir up trouble on the campuses, it just seemed to happen. It seemed like the more I went to the campuses, the larger crowds got. That to me was very encouraging, because we talk about revolution, but I am convinced that revolution is still occurring, when you excite a new generation to bring about the changes you want.”

Among issues that will have to be changed are entitlements and welfare.

“They will only be convinced when they government can’t provide,” he said. “This is very important … to see the failure of the transfer system.”

“We should be a giant Switzerland,” he said. “Where we have tremendous free markets, and civil liberties, prosperity and sound money and we will have a greater influence around the world than we do today. We should want people to emulate us, but do it in a voluntary way.

“We should be something new and different and it is available to us.”

He said his foes won’t find him suddenly vanishing, even if he’s not holding an office.

“To me, the solution to all this mess that we have is to believe in and understand what personal liberty is all about. Our lives, and our liberties, come from our Creator – not our government – and the purpose of government should be to protect those liberties,” he said.

“And the follow through on this is private property and sound economic policy, which is sound money. And also a basic moral principle is, you can’t do anything to other people that you wouldn’t want done to you. That means you want to protect your life and liberty, which means you cannot impose yourself on others, whether it’s on a personal basis or an international basis. That to me is the most important thing to do.”